Wealthy UK politician reckons he can survive on £53 a week.

reply to post by wright852


Would this be the same Iain Duncan Smith who has repeatedly been caught out lying?

He lied about the University he attended.
He lied about his professional qualifications.
He lied about the role of his wife.

Would this be the same Iain Duncan Smith who was an arms salesman for GEC-Marconi?

As I posted earlier, maybe IDS wasn't brought up in the lap of luxury but being the son of a Group Captain in the R.A.F. I suspect his upbringing was hardly one of having to live hand to mouth and was a million miles away from the life of anyone who lives on a council estate or who is receiving benefits.

I'm sorry but ultimately this whole debate is nothing but smoke in mirrors.

No amount of spin can alter the fact that this country is still one of the most wealthiest in the world and is far from being the bankrupt cripple it is being portrayed as.
And it is utterly deplorable that we expect citizens of this country, be they working or not, to have to live a subsistence level existence whilst enormous amounts of wealth that lay in the hands of a few sits around doing nothing but acquire even more obscene amounts of wealth.

Yes, there are many things wrong with the benefit system and it needs addressing as a matter of urgency.
But not for the reasons they say.
Many of those people who abuse the benefit system, and they are a minority of benefit claimants, do so as a direct result of the failings of consecutive governments policies - they are a product of the very system, people and society that is now demonising them.

It is noticeable that the uproar over the failure of major corporations and businesses to pay their tax has been forgotten.
Coincedence?

Conservative estimates put tax avoidance and evasion at between £70billion and £130 billion per year.
HMRC itself estimates it around £30 billion.

Benefit fraud, including the 'black economy', is estimated at around £3billion.

Yet this is actually offset by 'mistaken' underpayment and unclaimed benefits.

It seems convenient to use the poor, unwashed as scapegoats rather than the middle-classes who fiddle their tax returns, or the corporate bosses who syphon billions out of this country every year.

With the wealth and talent available in this country we should be trying become a beacon of what a caring and progressive society could and indeed should be.
Instead we are heading rapidly back to a Victorianesque society with all the evils that went with it.

reply to post by Freeborn


Freeborn, as a rule I agree with almost all of your posts that I see, but I'm not sure I can with this. Slagging off those with more money is par for the course in this country - people shouldn't rise above themselves should they? But why is it that it's 'always the minority' who don't want to work/abuse the system in your mind?

Now for all I know where you live everyone is as honest as the day is long and anyone on welfare is either the old dear who worked all her life and is even now the volunteer lollipop lady even though she's got two artificial hips, or it's the group of hard working lads who haven't been able to find work since the pit closed down but even now will come and tidy up the garden at the old folks home - is that the kind of place you live?

Where I live it's a mixture of working people or 15 year old mothers. Some people who don't want to work and some people that will take any work. I'm sure you don't try to do this, but you paint a black and white picture of nasty rich folk and poor downtrodden masses that just doesn't ring a bell for me where the shades of grey far outweigh those caricatured contrasts.

Why always blame the government? Why doesn't industry invest more in areas of high unemployment despite reduced business rates and government grants to do so (and I know for many parts of the North, either west or east such grants do exist)?

I can't help but come back to your comment -

"It seems convenient to use the poor, unwashed as scapegoats rather than the middle-classes who fiddle their tax returns, or the corporate bosses who syphon billions out of this country every year.

With the wealth and talent available in this country we should be trying become a beacon of what a caring and progressive society could and indeed should be.
Instead we are heading rapidly back to a Victorianesque society with all the evils that went with it. "

Both should be scapegoats. If you are cheating the system, you cheat the system - the amounts may vary yes, but that doesn't mean someone should be able to cry that they are the victim of such a cruel society and get away with it.

How caring and progressive we are depends exactly on how much we want to spend to make ourselves so - can I count you in for a 30 pence per pound increase in your income tax, or what other aspects of public spending would you like to be cut instead?

Originally posted by sitchin
a young women say in her mid twenties ,has 3 children lives on her own ..never worked a day in her life gets £300 pounds a week payed into her bank account ...has her rent and council tax payed in full ...

Don't forget to include:
A public school/university educated man who earns handsome pay and pension employed as an MP, has personal wealth hoarded in his many bank accounts, lives in a huge mansion, kids in public school, wants for nothing and never has, but gets a free 2nd home, free food, free transport, and free other stuff we don't know about ...
Then it's ok to add this:

in comparison a young male in his mid twenties no children works 40 hours plus a week on min wage earning £260 .. has to pay rent council tax ect ..basically is worse off for doing the right thing...

benefits are there to help people get back on there feet ..not to buy the latest I phone ...

... and also not there to provide free stuff for rich MP's.

i know personally of women who go out to get pregnant to boost there benefit beer fund

personally i think the government should be helping us workers .. people who want to work ...not giving my taxes to the work shy ....give them food coupons ...beer and smokes excluded ...

... and it should not be taking your taxes to fund it's members luxury either.

it bewilders me that people who don't work get rewarded while working and middle class hard working decent people have to fiance there work shy existence

But it doesn't bewilder you that you're also funding wealthy MP's a luxury lifestyle when they aren't broke and can easily afford themselves.

Haha you guys kill me.

I realised my heated post in response to that troll was perhaps too much, when I read his reply and realised that he is indeed nothing more than a troll.

I don't own my own home, the bank does, I pay money every month to own what would be owning another piece of mortar. I am at the mercy of the bank and as anyone knows when it comes to a mortgage, it is not safe, it is not cheap and for 25 years, if you're lucky, you are at the mercy of the bank and that's if everything goes fine and you don't ever want to sell. I saved hard for a deposit, working shift, 100 hour a week on average, its no joke doing what I do. The alternative was to continue to private rent, a landlord who couldn't careless, a house falling apart, a rent double most people's mortgage repayment.

Am I rich? Absolutely not, on paper I am a potential homeowner which to be honest carries less weight now than before anyway, I don't own my own until I have paid for it. I could potentially have money, but its in asset only and that is at the mercy of house prices, which although I am a potential home owner, I can tell you now are massively over inflated to which they should be halved, at least, before they become realistic in terms of value. However, like the private renting sector and its disgusting inflated prices by greedy landlords, its supply and demand and once again, another argument as to why our population cannot continue on its present growth forecast and why the private renting sector needs to be capped.

I have little cash, as stated, next to none. I can't remember the last time I bought clothes for myself, we don't have a laptop at home, we are currently trying to save for one, I have a mobile phone that rarely has credit on it, my main concern is that my kids are fed and clothed and the roof stays over our head as that is difficult enough.

I do have an issue with those never worked and living on benefits, because as much as the system is rigged against all of us, how can you make more of a living by having kids and not working and get priority in state housing when you have contributed absolutely nothing? How is that fair? How is it fair that these parents have more disposable cash than working families? I don't just see this at the school if I'm on late shift, I see this every single day in my job, there is nobody here that can tell me otherwise, with regards to Greater London at least. I see it every single day in so many households that I lose count, although the vast majority our immigrant households which makes it even worse.

Just read this from a well renowned financial analyst...




From the same article...

The above graph clearly shows that there exists a huge vested interest in the Benefits Culture, which is not something that has come about by accident but by Labour Party design as the last Labour government attempted to maximise vested interest voters that it was continually seeking to expand breadth of in an attempt to bribe the electorate into repeatedly voting for a Labour government, regardless of the inflationary consequences of spending money that the country does not have (printing debt).

The benefits culture can be seen as a Labour party voting block that the Conservative party can only seek to defeat at the next election by fragmenting i.e. turning one part of the benefits culture against another part in which respect the Coalition is putting In-work Benefit recipients up against Non-working benefit recipients.

The benefits culture is a disease that encourages laziness and jealousy of those who become successful through hard work, hence why those most vocal against successful immigrants tend to be lazy benefit claimants who have literally not done a days work in their lives and don't intend on doing so , but still spout the likes of the poles have taken our jobs! This despite the fact that it was LABOUR policy to import working class immigrants due to the fact that they would tend to vote LABOUR!

Unfortunately most voters are gullible and easily bribed so Labour will probably win the next general election as they will promise everyone everything under the sun, so the only thing hard working people can do is to prepare themselves for the coming inflation stealth theft of wealth that Labour election bribes will deliver.

Many vested interests decry the Tories as being the nasty party but the really nasty party is Labour because they tell the poor they cannot do anything for themselves but instead must rely on free money and services to live on and all they want in exchange is their vote the consequences of which is that Britain continues to die a slow death.

I agree in part with what is stated, except that wages have dropped so much thanks to immigration that now there aren't the jobs anymore that pay a liveable wage, without doing what I do and I can't even do that now that overtime is next to gone. I don't blame those that live off of benefits, they are victims of corrupt government policies that serve simply themselves and not the progress of a nation. However, what I do blame these people for is that absolute ignorance of how lucky they are, not ever benefit claimant is in receipt of a tonne of cash, but a fair few truly are, sitting in social housing, living a life that many working families can only dream of. These people think that because you work you must be taking home double, may be more what tehy do, they truly don't realise that wages are dead and inflation has forced everything up so we are actualyl year by year taking a pay cut!

They have turned us against each other, but many workers I know, although angry, can see how long term unemployed families have fallen in to that trap where by they have literally been bribed. What angers working families who are not in social housing is how those families in receipt of so much, cannot see for the life of them how well they have it and just how tough it is when you are in the private renting sector or if you do have a mortgage. Physical cash, many have far more than many of us can ever have.

We are divided, but as much as people can point fingers at the workers who are struggling and accuse them of having a go at "the poor", they need to address their own flaws and appreciate just how lucky they are, perhaps just as we should to have a job or to have a mortgage. The problem with working families who do private rent or do have a mortgage, is that we have had to work for it, for people like us nothing is or ever has been free. When we see what others get for not working for it, that's a red flag.

Put it this way, if I was in social housing, I would never have even dreamed of buying a house, perhaps even less dreamed of doing the job that I'm doing now. Everything is a choice, but when the state refuses to help you, our choices become limited, it is down to sheer will as to what happens from there. Argue all you like, I've worked damn hard to get where I am, I am struggling massively, but I work to make sure my kids needs are met because they are my responsibility, my choice. So when others choose to let the workers of all wealth classes subsidise not just the needs, but the wants of their children and their lifestyles, how can anyone defend that? How is that fair? I guess only fools and horses work!

I don't know why the general public are so bothered about people on benefits. Who care's whose got what? At the end of the day, i'd rather be me than anyone I can think of. As for my taxe's? I get robbed blind anyway, so as far as i'm concerned, I don't give a poo where it go's!

At least I can hold my head up high. The people on benefits have always been picked on for being lazy and unemployable. There must be good reasons why some of them never work. I am sure if there were enough jobs to go round everyone would attempt to work. People I interview, when asked what their aspirations are for the future always say I want a roof over my head and a job. That seems reasonable to me.

Is this government reasonable? I don't think so. Educate some them not to waste their vote,would be a good start.

hx

Originally posted by doobydoll

Originally posted by sitchin
a young women say in her mid twenties ,has 3 children lives on her own ..never worked a day in her life gets £300 pounds a week payed into her bank account ...has her rent and council tax payed in full ...

Don't forget to include:
A public school/university educated man who earns handsome pay and pension employed as an MP, has personal wealth hoarded in his many bank accounts, lives in a huge mansion, kids in public school, wants for nothing and never has, but gets a free 2nd home, free food, free transport, and free other stuff we don't know about ...
Then it's ok to add this:

in comparison a young male in his mid twenties no children works 40 hours plus a week on min wage earning £260 .. has to pay rent council tax ect ..basically is worse off for doing the right thing...

benefits are there to help people get back on there feet ..not to buy the latest I phone ...

... and also not there to provide free stuff for rich MP's.

i know personally of women who go out to get pregnant to boost there benefit beer fund

personally i think the government should be helping us workers .. people who want to work ...not giving my taxes to the work shy ....give them food coupons ...beer and smokes excluded ...

... and it should not be taking your taxes to fund it's members luxury either.

Why are you trying to compare like with like when it's not? Being an MP itself gives you a salary of just over £65K - yes, well above the average wage, but then it's not the easiest job to get, it's not decided by the MP and it's cross party. You think that is a luxury wage? I'd suggest it's a very good one but hardly makes you a millionaire.

Why are you trying to ignore one scenario and push it back to your agenda? Oh, because it's nothing to do with the actual thread but suits your purpose I guess.

You do know you don't get a 'free' second house don't you? It's meant to cover the fact that commuting from constituency to parliament isn't considered viable and rent of it lasts for your term as an MP. Yes, that system has been abused by members of all parties and there is no defending that, but then the fact that is now under more scrutiny can't be denied either.

Fact of life - being an MP is a job and has a salary - you don't like the amount, that is fairly much tough.

Shame, with you also being from Nottingham I kind of hoped you would have a balanced view, but maybe you are just passing through.

reply to post by something wicked

Freeborn, as a rule I agree with almost all of your posts that I see, but I'm not sure I can with this.

Life would be boring and mundane to the extreme if we all agreed on everything.
At least you appear to have a reasoned and considered opinion which isn't soley based on MSM and blind acceptance.
Far too many seem to have no opinion at all of their own other than that which is force fed them - another sad reflection of our society.

Slagging off those with more money is par for the course in this country - people shouldn't rise above themselves should they?

I have nothing at all against people bettering themselves and enjoying the rewards of their hard work and endeavour but that raises several questions - which are probably far too complicated for this thread alone.
How do we measure and reward hard work?
And how much reward is fair and just?

I can only speak for myself; and I know that once I had amassed enough wealth for the nice house, nice car, holidays when and where ever, look after family etc what then would I do?
I would like to think that then I would use my wealth to help my community, give friends a helping hand to achieve things etc and generally re-invest that wealth in this country and it's people.

Unfortunately far too many seem obsessed or content to simply sit on their wealth and watch it grow whilst doing nothing constructive with it whatsoever.
And it seems the majority of politicians are happy to let them do this and even actively pursue policies that enable them to do so often at the expense of 'the common man'.

But why is it that it's 'always the minority' who don't want to work/abuse the system in your mind?

I agree there is a minority who abuse the system and that needs addressing with urgency but what we have at present are policies that target acoss the board rather than singling out the malingerers etc.

It's worth noting that by far the biggest portion of public spending goes on pensions and in work benefits - those who have worked all their lives and those work shy malingerers who quite ironically choose to go to work for such crap wages they have to get benefits just to survive.

You mention the 'shades of grey' that make up our society and that's just the point - these policies are black and white and target all on benefits.

Why always blame the government?

Because they are the one's in power.
Because they claim to have all the answers.
Because it's their policies that have failed us.

And I don't just mean this government but successive governments.

Why doesn't industry invest more in areas of high unemployment despite reduced business rates and government grants to do so (and I know for many parts of the North, either west or east such grants do exist)?

Indeed, why don't they?

Both should be scapegoats. If you are cheating the system, you cheat the system - the amounts may vary yes, but that doesn't mean someone should be able to cry that they are the victim of such a cruel society and get away with it.

Perhaps so.
But tax evasion and tax avoidance costs this country far, far more than benefit fraud etc.

So why the focus on sweeping cuts that affect the poor and low to middle income earners?

I firmly beleive the NHS is one of this country's greatest ever achievements but it should be a damn sight better than it is.
And one of the biggest savings this country could make is stop the apparently accepted practice of major drug companies and other suppliers charging the NHS inflated prices.

Wonder why no-one seems interested in addressing that little problem?

How caring and progressive we are depends exactly on how much we want to spend to make ourselves so - can I count you in for a 30 pence per pound increase in your income tax, or what other aspects of public spending would you like to be cut instead?

I don't mind in a rise in taxes provided the money raised would be re-directed to the NHS, education system, a good and fair benefit system, a house building programme and generally stimulating the economy and getting people into work and paying a fair days wage for a fair days work - but then again we could achieve that without raising taxes.

reply to post by Freeborn


Hi,

I won't reply with a quote as it will probably mean I won't actually be able to respond, but I appreciate your thoughts. Like you, I would like to see an altruistic society, but let's face it - how much is enough? I do know that many who have generated wealth either share that with their community, their favoured charities or their employees - often with no fanfare or self promotion and that is great, but at the same time I wouldn't throw stones at those that don't - if they earned it then they have the right to use it as they wish.

I'm not sure I agree that politicians always claim to have the answers (although I appreciate you are not targetting one political party which I think is key as many on here see Tory as rich and Labour as working class when really they are both a mixture), but politicians can only create the landscape - it's for others to cultivate that. I know the company I work for has a relatively large base in the UK because tax wise it's still beneficial for them to do so but should a future government remove that benefit then as a global company they will cut their losses and leave, and I would have a hard time blaming them. That's where government can assist - if they create a false economy by increasing public sector jobs purely for the sake of pleasing the electorate then sooner of later they will fall - as the last Labour government did and yet they still don't seem to understand that.

Why doesn't industry invest more? I have no answer, I wish I did. I don't think there is a sinister motive, but any government can only do so much - they can't force companies where to employ people and the day they can...... well, that's not a society I want to leave in, but they should and do where possible offer enticement through favourable grants.

As for your comment about me having an opinion based on MSM, you're right, I haven't, but MSM works both ways. There are as many memes around the nasty rich as there are about the downtrodden poor or benefit cheats, just depends what you watch or which paper you read. I prefer a more broadminded approach.

The only other thing I personally can say is I've been unemployed through redundancy twice and it was crap. Hated it and did everything I possibly could to find employment whatever it meant. As a result I'm fortunate enough to have been in employment for the last 20 years. I know not everyone is so lucky, others are luckier and yet others wouldn't want to bother. I can't take a black and white approach as it just isn't black and white.

By the way, I know a lot could be achieved without raising taxes, but not by government alone.

And you know what else, before anyone says it - no, the government do not always aid those who need clothes and expenses to find work, nor do they help people who have found a job, I know this from experience.

I was on their new deal program some years ago and found a job in retail - working in a shop that sold trendy clothes, the job required that I have shoes, dress trousers and a shirt which I had to supply myself with. I could not afford these items having spent some time on jobseekers. I'd spent most of my teenage years and early 20's working as a temp doing what little factory work was available. You don't wear black shoes, black trousers and a black shirt when you toil in a factory, you wear trainers, jeans and a t-shirt.

Temp work, there's another awesome concept - laid off and taken on as and when required. Another disgusting situation whereby so-called recruitment agencies tax a percentage of your wages and arrange a contract all in the corporations favour - I worked 12-hour nightshift in an electronics factory 6 sometimes 7 days a week because if I refused a shift, they simply laid me off and replaced me. The odds are always stacked in the employers favour, they use and abuse people like you wouldn't believe, no paid annual leave, no guarantee of regular work, no union, no life and no soul...a battery doing the hours to line the pockets of the lazy. A disposable, useless non-entity who's "easily replaced" - and they'd happily tell you that to your face - don't like it, tough, leave...there's plenty more where you came from. They'd mess you about, call you in for a shift, you show up and they immediately usher you and loads of other people into a room then tell you unfortunately they don't actually need you after all!

They'd send you home on a whim and you get nothing, they'd call you and tell you to come in at an hours notice, and if you couldn't - they'd basically dump you. The turnover in staff was so high, they had a policy that if they sacked you, you could re-apply after 6 months and they'd take you back on, they were a huge employer and pretty much everyone I knew at that time had worked for them at some stage. It was mind numbing, you rarely worked with the same people for long enough to get to know them. People were doing drugs to stay awake and deal with it, but it was preferable to claiming benefits and that's the point.

People spend their jobseekers and benefits on drink, absurd! Some might, not all. People get their rent paid for them! They do? Not always, no. And some people have to pay council tax, too.

Off on a tangent there, sorry, back to my main point - I found the afore-mentioned job in retail and applied for what's called a crisis loan to purchase uniform items and was refused. I had 2 choices, either turn down the job or find the money elsewhere. I had a good mate who isn't well off but at that time was able to help me so I took the job.

They have some "back to work" bonus scheme, or used to at least. The idea was if you found a job, they'd give you a £100 bonus, a big help for someone who has to work an entire month before being paid and had nothing. Despite the many times I found work and signed off, I amazingly never qualified for the back to work bonus, they always had some excuse. One time I was told that I did not qualify because I'd been unemplyed less than 6 months, another time a few years later I was told I didn't qualify because I'd been unemployed for more than 6 months. When I pointed out this inconsistency the second time I was informed that I'd been misinformed the first time, it'd be funny if it wasn't so disgusting.

Part of me thinks they didn't want me to find a job, they wanted me unemployed...sounds absurd, right?

Except for the fact that their amazing new deal program stipulated that if I didn't find work within a 6 month period that I'd then be put on some work placement or program, yeah - this is the cool thing they introduced whereby you work full time for benefits. A full time job for, at that time, about £70 a week - quite far removed from the minimum wage.

It's not slave labour, it's an opportunity! Yeah, an opportunity for the greedy corporations who are quite happy to employ the services of a human for nothing. They want people to be unemployed, to be destitute, they want you to have cheap, stinking clothes...shabby and badly groomed, they want you in the gutter with no way out, because you'll happily work a 40+ hour week for your £53 if they threaten to take that from you aswell.

To think that people are actually defending this clown, that we have put up with this. We work to contribute to a system that's supposed to benefit us as a society, yet we're existing and scraping by on scraps, while those WE the people EMPLOY to oversee the system that's meant to benefit us tell us we need very little, that they could live on very little - yet they live in luxury and excess while they sign us up for cheap, slave labour. It's nothing short of ugly.

People need to wake up.

reply to post by SecretFace


I didn't mean to have a go at you, I do understand your point, honestly I do

But if you think for a minute that when they kick people off welfare that they will then proceed to distribute the accumulated savigns between us struggling workers then you're living in a fantasy, it will not benefit you or me and we both know it.

So I'm left thinking, what would I prefer? For the money to disappear into the pockets of the haves and not the have nots? Or for it to be spread among those claiming benefits at the risk of a few ponces and scroungers getting paid? I'd rather the latter, because the ponces and scroungers are a minority.

They aren't doing this for you, or me...and we know it. I'd rather contribute to a system that help support the poor than the greedy.

Also, I made some comments which I guess were quite insulting and feel bad. You sound like a good man and you work hard for your family as my parents did. I hope you pay off your mortgage and have that asset to pass on to your children, Your kids might occasionally do without certain luxuries but they'll appreciate the value of what they had and, like me, have great respect for their parents.

I apologise and wish you well.

reply to post by something wicked


Who said i was pennyless troll

Originally posted by something wicked

Originally posted by doobydoll

Originally posted by sitchin
a young women say in her mid twenties ,has 3 children lives on her own ..never worked a day in her life gets £300 pounds a week payed into her bank account ...has her rent and council tax payed in full ...

Don't forget to include:
A public school/university educated man who earns handsome pay and pension employed as an MP, has personal wealth hoarded in his many bank accounts, lives in a huge mansion, kids in public school, wants for nothing and never has, but gets a free 2nd home, free food, free transport, and free other stuff we don't know about ...
Then it's ok to add this:

in comparison a young male in his mid twenties no children works 40 hours plus a week on min wage earning £260 .. has to pay rent council tax ect ..basically is worse off for doing the right thing...

benefits are there to help people get back on there feet ..not to buy the latest I phone ...

... and also not there to provide free stuff for rich MP's.

i know personally of women who go out to get pregnant to boost there benefit beer fund

personally i think the government should be helping us workers .. people who want to work ...not giving my taxes to the work shy ....give them food coupons ...beer and smokes excluded ...

... and it should not be taking your taxes to fund it's members luxury either.

Why are you trying to compare like with like when it's not? Being an MP itself gives you a salary of just over £65K - yes, well above the average wage, but then it's not the easiest job to get, it's not decided by the MP and it's cross party. You think that is a luxury wage? I'd suggest it's a very good one but hardly makes you a millionaire.

Why are you trying to ignore one scenario and push it back to your agenda? Oh, because it's nothing to do with the actual thread but suits your purpose I guess.

You do know you don't get a 'free' second house don't you? It's meant to cover the fact that commuting from constituency to parliament isn't considered viable and rent of it lasts for your term as an MP. Yes, that system has been abused by members of all parties and there is no defending that, but then the fact that is now under more scrutiny can't be denied either.

Fact of life - being an MP is a job and has a salary - you don't like the amount, that is fairly much tough.

Shame, with you also being from Nottingham I kind of hoped you would have a balanced view, but maybe you are just passing through.

I am fully aware of what poor folk get in benefits to survive, and as long as I keep hearing benefit haters bashing those people for needing and receiving help from taxpayer money, then I'll keep pointing the finger right back at rich, freeloading MP's who take from the taxpayer pot for things they don't need and can easily pay for themselves. And they take more than a few hundred quid a month too.

If we're talking about abolishing a 'something for nothing' culture here in the UK, I think it is only fair to include the real fraudsters and abusers of tax money. In fact, I think we should start with them, and abolish expenses claims for MP's, they won't starve if we force them to stop sponging of the taxpayers.

reply to post by something wicked

You do know you don't get a 'free' second house don't you? It's meant to cover the fact that commuting from constituency to parliament isn't considered viable and rent of it lasts for your term as an MP. Yes, that system has been abused by members of all parties and there is no defending that, but then the fact that is now under more scrutiny can't be denied either.

Why should we pay rent on their 2nd home when they get tens of thousands in salaries? Not viable to commute? Then do what the rest of us would have to do and bloody MOVE! Or get a job nearer home.

reply to post by doobydoll


well said, I had to commute some 30 miles to get to work at one point, the way the jobcentre saw it, I'd been offered a job and if I turned it down I'd have had my benefts stopped.

I travelled on foot from my home to a bus stop, paid bus fare to ride 20 minutes on a bus to get to the train station.

I then spend 45 minutes on a train and apon arrival hiked to my place of employment where I spent 8 hours of my day for minumum wage before reversing the process to get home, I was paying insane travel expenses to work a low paid job...employed on a 40 hours week but including travel time it amounted to about 12 hours a day.

Totally worth it! Yeah, right...I ain't gonna lie, I did not want to take this job, I was a young man, people just don't need that in their lives...if given the choice that time i think i'd have taken my chances on the benefits until something more suitable for ME came along, but there was no choice.

I sure wish I could have claimed my travel expenses at least, considering MP's get to do so, and they ain't riding by train or bus, either.

Like I said in my previous post, they say they want people off benefits, but their actions tell a different story.

If unemployment was such a high priority our borders wouldn't be wide open, it doesn't make sense. They want people unemployed because those people can be forced into slave labour to earn those benefits.

Originally posted by doobydoll
reply to post by something wicked

 

You do know you don't get a 'free' second house don't you? It's meant to cover the fact that commuting from constituency to parliament isn't considered viable and rent of it lasts for your term as an MP. Yes, that system has been abused by members of all parties and there is no defending that, but then the fact that is now under more scrutiny can't be denied either.

Why should we pay rent on their 2nd home when they get tens of thousands in salaries? Not viable to commute? Then do what the rest of us would have to do and bloody MOVE! Or get a job nearer home.

If they move then they are no longer based in their constituency - that's really not difficult to understand is it? Oh dear.

On the subject of IDS and his trip to Easterhouse. I live not too far from Glasgow, not giving an exact location but it's in the Clydebank area.

I've been to Easterhouse...it's basically, or was - a ghetto. Not bad people, human beings with little prospects, where the average life expectancy was the mid 40's or something.

Yeah, IDS went there, and went home again. I had friends who lived there back then, so what if he visited Easterhouse?

In the 60's, singer Frankie Vaughan also visited Easterhouse and it was a big deal, google it...all IDS did was show that no government had done anything to improve the area since the 60's...it was the same as it ever was, and although some development has taken place, it's still inadequate.

And I'll tell you something - if you think Easterhouse is the most deprived area in Scotland or even Glasgow, you're sorely mistaken. If anything, although not a nice place - the people of Easterhouse are no doubt sick of being the poster child for the scum of the city, they are not. They're mostly good, decent people trying to get by.

The biggest rash of development in easterhouse and other parts of Glasgow and surrounding areas came during Labour's reign.

reply to post by something wicked


Perhaps someone will put them up in one of those spare bedrooms that tenants are now being penalised for? I'm sure they'd only have to ask.

Originally posted by something wicked

Originally posted by doobydoll
reply to post by something wicked

 

You do know you don't get a 'free' second house don't you? It's meant to cover the fact that commuting from constituency to parliament isn't considered viable and rent of it lasts for your term as an MP. Yes, that system has been abused by members of all parties and there is no defending that, but then the fact that is now under more scrutiny can't be denied either.

Why should we pay rent on their 2nd home when they get tens of thousands in salaries? Not viable to commute? Then do what the rest of us would have to do and bloody MOVE! Or get a job nearer home.

If they move then they are no longer based in their constituency - that's really not difficult to understand is it? Oh dear.

You mean they took on the job of dictating that poor folk can't sponge off taxpayer money, knowing full well they can't/won't carry out said job unless THEY themselves are allowed to sponge off the taxpayer?

Is that what you mean?

Oh dear.

The demonising of those on benefits continues.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Those comments are below contemptible at such a sensitive time - words fail me.